


How You Get the Boy

by SynthesisNexus



Series: Merthur Taylor Swift Songverse [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Break Up, Inspired by Taylor Swift, M/M, Makeup, Not Beta Read, POV Merlin (Merlin), Post-Break Up, Romance, Song: How You Get the Girl (Taylor Swift)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28180560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SynthesisNexus/pseuds/SynthesisNexus
Summary: It had been six months since Arthur broke up with Merlin and cut him out of his life without so much as a goodbye. Despite the pain and heartache, Merlin has moved on. So what is he to do when Arthur shows up on his porch at night in the middle of a storm?Based on Taylor Swift's "How You Get the Girl".
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Merthur Taylor Swift Songverse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2071389
Comments: 13
Kudos: 113





	How You Get the Boy

**Author's Note:**

> So, I don't know how good this will be. It has been a great while since I last wrote something, so as an exercise I decided to write a small series based on Taylor Swift songs. They are all one-shots but based in the same universe. I was planning on writing them chronologically, but I had such a hard time even getting started. Then I heard 'How You Get the Girl' on my playlist, and the whole story simply came to me in a flash. I wrote this in less than an hour. Instead of waiting weeks or months until the "earlier" one-shots are written, I've decided to put this on the site. I hope you enjoy.

Merlin didn’t know who he was expecting when he opened the front door, but it wasn’t Arthur. It was late, and a storm had been raging for hours. Yet there Arthur stood, white as a ghost and shaking in the rain. The storm’s howling roared between them; it felt like a small eternity but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.

Then Merlin’s common sense kicked in.

“Are you insane!?” Merlin exclaimed, pulling Arthur inside.

Arthur smiled with teeth chattering. “S-sorry,” he said, looking anything but. If anything, he looked relieved.

Feeling the oh-so-familiar pull of those blue eyes, Merlin looked away and pulled the older boy into the living room. He pushed Arthur into an armchair and went to get a towel from the bathroom. He threw itnone-too-gently at Arthur at his return.

“Is Hunith working?” Arthur asked as he began drying himself. Merlin looked away again.

“Yes. They called her in at the hospital due to the storm,” Merlin answered. Arthur made a noncommittal sound. Then silence reigned between them. Merlin walked over and sat on the couch, feeling Arthur’s eyes on him the entire time. He slowly looked up. “Arthur, what are you doing here?”

Arthur seemed to falter. Instead of answering, he took his time finishing drying off and then slowly folded the towel. He put it on the coffee table and then he said, “I missed you.”

“You… missed me?” Merlin asked, his voice cracking. When Arthur nodded minutely, Merlin stood up abruptly. “Christ, Arthur. It has been six months. _Six months._ ”

“I know,” it came from Arthur miserably.

“You dumped me, blocked me, and cut me out of your life from one day to the next. You haven’t spoken a single word to me in _six months_.”

“I know,” Arthur repeated, looking down into his lap. “I was afraid. I didn’t-.”

“Didn’t what? Didn’t want me? Didn’t want to be happy? Or you didn’t want to be anything but a perfect little daddy’s boy?” Merlin laughed sharply, and Arthur winced. “You don’t have to explain Arthur. I understand. I’ve always understood. I even played your little game – I hid in the closet, kept my distance when we were in public, played the forever lonely loser. I respected that your circumstances were different than mine, that Uther is a right prick who would never accept a gay son, truly I did. I _never_ thought that you would end it with anything but respect for me, but I guess that just makes me all the more of a fool, huh?”

At the end of his rant, Merlin was all but huffing and puff. Seeing Arthur shrivel together under his tirade – so unlike _Arthur_ – made the anger evaporate as quickly as it had surged up in him, and left Merlin with nothing but the hurt. Merlin opened and closed his mouth a few times, unsure of what to say, only to leave for the kitchen and the washing up he had postponed for the entire evening.

Arthur didn’t follow right away. In fact, Merlin had almost cleaned all the pots and pans when he heard the floorboards creak as the boy he had loved, and he had lost stepped into the kitchen. Merlin didn’t acknowledge him and continued the task in front of him.

“I came out to my father,” Arthur then said. Merlin dropped the plate he had been cleaning, splashing his shirt with dishwater. He turned to face Arthur with wide eyes. “And Morgana. And Mithian. And the football team.”

“Arthur…”

The older boy’s eyes teared up. “I couldn’t do it anymore, Merls.” That familiar nickname had no right to fall so easily from Arthur’s lips, and it had no right to speed up Merlin’s heart as it did. “It just became too much. I have done everything to please Uther, and it’s just never enough. I have studied what he wants me to, I’ve socialised with the correct people, I even had a girlfriend of the right standing, but it’s just never fucking enough. And then he began talking of marriage once Mithian and I are in college. Not after, _in_ college.” Arthur was trembling again, though not from the cold this time. Tears began to roll down his cheeks. “It felt like it was the last nail in the coffin. I could see all my future, that perfectly respectable and upstanding future that _he_ had planned out for me. And I could… I just couldn’t. So, I told him.”

Merlin’s body acted before his head had caught up with it; before he knew, he had his arms around Arthur, hugging him tightly. “It’ll be alright, Arthur.”

“I-I’m so s-sorry, Merlin,” Arthur apologised. He fell into Merlin’s arms as sobs began to wreck through his body. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Merlin soothed him. “I’m here.”

They moved into the living room again and sat on the couch. Arthur clung to Merlin as his sobs lessened to a sniffle and then finally disappeared. Merlin’s hand caressed Arthur’s side, up and down, up and down. It shouldn’t be so easy to fall back into the same old rhythm, but it was.

“Do you think you can ever forgive me?” Arthur asked after what had felt like hours.

Merlin sighed. “I know my outburst before might’ve signalled otherwise, but I never held it against you. And I’m not going to lie, I didn’t get out of my bed for a week afterwards.” He looked down at Arthur. They were mere centimetres apart, and Merlin could count the specks of green in the older boy’s eyes. “It wasn’t only that I mourned our relationship, mourned you – it was that I mourned _for_ you. I think that you’re the most amazing person in the world, and the thought of you going through the motion for the rest of your life, simply to make your father happy – it was just heart-breaking.”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about that anymore.” Arthur gave a small self-deprecating smile and then glanced down. “Shit, sorry, I got snot on your shirt.”

“That’s hardly the first time – or the worst thing you’ve gotten on my shirt,” Merlin laughed.

“Merlin!” Ever the priss boy, Arthur turned red from head to toe. It only made Merlin laugh harder, and he began poking Arthur in his side. The older boy yelped. “Oi, Merlin! You know I’m ticklish.”

“That’s the point, dollophead,” Merlin grinned and continued.

It quickly devolved into a wrestling match from there, with each trying to get the upper hand. Merlin could not remember when he last had felt so light-hearted or free. And before he knew it, Arthur had him pressed down into the couch with their lips slotted firmly together.

Merlin closed his eyes and let the sensation wash over him. Arthur’s lips and tongue against his, the hand pressed firmly against his hip, the familiar weight of Arthur above him. And then, ever so gently, he pushed against Arthur’s chest and pulled back from the kiss.

“Arthur…”

“Fuck, sorry,” Arthur said with wide, panicked eyes. He sat up quickly and made to stand up, but Merlin grabbed his wrist, forcing his stay.

“No, don’t- Don’t apologise,” Merlin shook his head. “I wanted – want it – too. But, Arthur, I need to know that this isn’t just… a fling, or you on your lowest and needing to hold on to something, or-.”

“No, Merlin – no, of course not,” Arthur cut him off, grabbing his hands. “What I did to you is my biggest regret in life. Not just the breaking up, or how I broke up with you, but keeping you at arm’s length and forcing you to have one foot back in the closet. Being with you was easy, the most _right_ I have felt.” Arthur put a hand to Merlin’s cheek and caressed his cheekbone. “When I saw that future with Mithian that Uther had planned, it wasn’t just how unhappy that life would’ve made me that made me come out. It was the thought of what a life with _you_ would look like, and how happy I would be. Even if you want nothing to do with me, and I can’t blame you for that, I don’t regret coming out. I just…” Arthur sighed, his eyes big, blue and so, so earnest. “You’re _it_ for me, Merlin. I gave you up once for a fucking stupid reason, and if you ever give me a sliver of a chance, I will never give you up again.”

Merlin felt tears fill up his eyes. He gave Arthur a watery smile and squeezed his hands. “Things can’t go back to the way they were.”

Arthur let out a puff of breath as if Merlin had punched him, but he didn’t push away. “I understand-.”

Merlin gently put a hand on his mouth. “You’ve had your say. Let me speak now, please.” When his hand fell away, and Arthur didn’t come with some retort, Merlin’s mouth twitched. “Well, a wonder of wonders.”

Arthur’s shoulders shook with a suppressed laugh. He cocked an eyebrow at Merlin.

“I want to be with you, Arthur. You’re _it_ for me as well,” Merlin told him. “But the problems we had weren’t simply about having to hide our relationship. I need you to come to me when you have problems. I need you to _speak_ to me about your feelings. I need to hear that you care about me more than simply when we make up after a fight. I need to have you tell me _your_ needs. I don’t want you to feel afraid that if you fuck up simply once that I will leave you because I won’t; I don’t expect things to change overnight, but I expect you to work on them. And I will work on them with you.”

Arthur let out a sigh of relief. “Merlin, I will do _anything_.”

A gentle smile spread across Merlin’s face. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against Arthur’s for but a moment.

“I love you, Arthur. That hasn’t changed, and nothing with change it.”

“I love you, too, Merls,” Arthur replied. He then broke out laughing, pouncing on Merlin.

Hunith would walk in on them in the early hours of the morning, entangled in each other’s arms, sleeping on the couch.


End file.
